How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Such a poet," said Dona Crista. There was no irony in her voice; she meant it. "Do the piggies understand that we've sent our very best as our ambassador?" (1.86)
You can tell this is a bizarre sci-fi alternate reality because they honor poets.
Quote #2
And perhaps when he found the truth, and spoke in the clear voice that she had loved in the Hive Queen and the Hegemon, perhaps that would free her from the blame that burned her to the heart. (3.61)
Is the clear voice that cleanses and heals the same voice as the voice of Speaker for the Dead itself do you think? How much of Ender the writer is supposed to be Orson Scott Card the writer? And does that mean he's boasting in passages like this?
Quote #3
"All your education was military, and the only other gift you have is a flair for words. You wrote a bestseller that spawned a humanistic religion—how does that qualify you to understand the pequeninos?" (4.75)
Jane knows, Shmoop is pretty sure, that it's exactly Ender's gift for writing that qualifies him to understand the piggies. In Speaker for the Dead, writing is knowing other people; it's a kind of condensed compassion. This is why, as a writer, Shmoop knows that your ear itches right now.
Quote #4
[…] Ender was the Speaker for the Dead; his genius—or his curse—was his ability to conceive events as someone else saw them […] from the cold facts of Novinha's life he was able to guess—no, not to guess, to know—how her parent's death and virtual sainthood had isolated Novinha. (4.88)
Ender just about becomes the novelist here. How can he know from the facts who Novinha is unless he's not just interpreting, but writing her story? Is he learning what she is, or is he making her what she is?
Quote #5
But Miro had insisted on giving them, along with it, a printout of the Hive Queen and the Hegemon. "St. John says nothing about beings who live on other worlds," Miro pointed out. "But the Speaker for the Dead explains buggers to humans—and humans to buggers." …not a year later they found the piggies lighting fires using pages of St. John as kindling, while The Hive Queen and the Hegemon was tenderly wrapped in leaves. (9.122)
A big part of popular literature is identification; we like to be able to see ourselves in literature. The piggies are no different—which is another way of saying we can see ourselves in them seeing themselves in the Hive Queen. Literature is one way you bridge foreignness with sameness.
Quote #6
"Yes, you're ungrateful, and a terrible daughter," he said laughing softly. "Through all these years of chaos and neglect you've held your mother's family together with little help from her, and when you followed her in her career, she wouldn't share the most vital information with you….." (13.109)
The Speaker is speaking Ela's story—sort of a mini-speaking before the big event. What he says is also what the book says; we learn the truth about Ela from both simultaneously. Ender barely knows her, but he's nonetheless the voice of narrative authority. What the words say are what Ela is.
Quote #7
The Bishop remembered the scene in his chambers more than a decade ago….Yet he had been alone. He had told no one. Who was this Speaker, and how did he know so much about things he could not possibly have known? (15.137)
Ender knows, of course, because Orson Scott Card told him. Ender speaks true because Card lets him speak true… and oddly, the reverse is the case as well. Ender's miraculous powers of perception underline, or validate, Card's story. Card's story about Marcao and Novinha must be true, because Ender can see so much else that is true. Ender's perceptiveness becomes Card's perceptiveness, and vice versa.
Quote #8
"So she endured, even invited Marcao's punishment. It was her penance. It was never penance enough. No matter how much Marcao might hate her, she hated herself more." (15.165)
This is Ender telling Novinha's story. We're supposed to see that story as true—we're told over and over that Ender is revealing truth. But we know it's just a story, and even in the story it's not Novinha that tells it, but Ender. Ender says Marcao didn't want power over Novinha, but are we sure that's true? Doesn't Ender also assert power over her by telling her he knows her story better than she does?
Quote #9
"I'll tell your story," said Ender.
"Then I will truly live forever." (17.461-462)
Shakespeare used to brag that he could immortalize people in his sonnets. Ender is like Shakespeare if Shakespeare were also Napolean and the Buddha.
Quote #10
He lived with the piggies for a week while he wrote the Life of Human. (18.231)
One final literary superpower: Ender writes amazingly fast. Shmoop doesn't know how long it would take to understand an alien culture well enough to write a definitive history of one of its members, but Shmoop is pretty sure that doing it in a week is impressive.